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FEATURES

‘By FRED WEIR

It is just over a year since U.S. Presi-
dent Ronald Reagan offered the world
his own rosy view of the future path to
peace, a vision put forward in his now-
famous ‘‘Star Wars”’ speech.

He said: “I call upon the scientific
community, who gave us nuclear weap-
ons, to turn their great talents to the

. cause of mankind and world peace: to

give us the means of rendering these nu-
clear weapons impotent and obsolete’’.

What Reagan had in mind was that
American scientists should turn their
energies toward the development of a
sophisticated Ballistic Missile Defence
(BMD) network, that would cast an
impenetrable ‘shield’? over the United
States and give it an indisputable, final
nuclear superiority over the USSR.

Now a very large segment of the
scientific community has responded to
the President’s request, although their
answer 1s not likely to give him much
pleasure.

Inzea tightly-argued report entitled
““Space-Based Missile Defence” the
9,000-member Union of Concerned Sci-
entists has exhaustively examined the
feasibility and potential of BMD and
space warfare. It finds that the presi-
dent’s plans are dangerously unwork-
able, on both technical and_ political
grounds.

“A magic force-field that surrounds
the United States and protects it against
all enemies is attractive if you are fond of
magic’’, says astronomer Carl Sagan,
one of the authors of the report. ‘‘But in
the real world we find that there are very
serious problems for such a notion”’.

Even under perfect conditions, the re-
port points out, there is certain to be

some ‘‘leakage’’ in any BMD system.
* While Pentagon officials do not seem too

perturbed about this problem, the Union
of Concerned Scientists’ calculations
show that just. five per cent of nuclear
warheads slipping past the ‘‘defence’’

Scientists fear
Star War plans .

network would result in over 60 million
American casualties! Ten per cent
‘‘leakage’’ — not an unreasonable pos-
sibility —could leave up to 70 per cent of
the U.S. population dead.

However, perfect conditions will not
prevail. As the report notes, the U.S.
plan for a BMD program assumes that
the USSR will take no countermeasures.
It is based, as Carl Sagan suggests, on
‘the fallacy of the last move: the idea
that if there is only one more move in the
endless arms race, then all will be well’.

In fact, says the report ‘‘the Soviets
have made it clear that they view the
quest for a total BMD as an unacceptable
threat. They fear that such a BMD sys-
tem would give us the option to strike

__ first —an understandable fear since (De-

fence Secretary) Weinberger has said

American artist’s conception of anti-missile warfare — from U.S. News & World Report.

that he would view a similar Soviet sys-
tem as ‘one of the most frightening pros-
pects’ imaginable ... In the real world
we must therefore expect a determined
Soviet reaction, unconstrained by all
existing agreements, because the: very
testing of our defensive weapons would
violate our obligations under the ratified
Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty’’.
The report goes on to detail a number
of effective countermeasures that the
USSR could take to thwart American
BMD efforts. The U.S. would be forced
to take counter-countermeasures. The
net result would be a massive, stagger-
ingly complex and expensive arms race
in several entirely new categories of
weapons.
* “Even if we get through this hazar-
dous passage’’, asks the report, “‘will we

have reached the promised land where
nuclear weapons are ‘impotent and ob-
solete’? Obviously not. We would then
have a defence of stupefying complexity,
under the total control of a computer
program whose proportions defy de-
scription, and whose performance will
remain a deep mystery until the tragic’
moment when it would be called into
action’’.

Moreover, notes the report, none of
the planned BMD measures will be effec-
tive against Cruise missiles or de-
pressed-trajectory ballistic missiles,
much less the upcoming generation of
undetectable STEALTH weapons. The
development of BMD systems is only
likely to accelerate the race in these
categories of highly destabilizing,
unverifiable weapons.

There can be no _ technocratic
“‘solutions”’ to the central human prob-
lem of the arms race, concludes the re-
port. The decision to go ahead with a
BMD system for the U.S., even if it can
be made to work, will only intensify the

_military contest that holds the Earth’s

population increasingly at risk.

“It is difficult to imagine a more hazar-
dous confrontation. And it is equally dif-
ficult to understand how anyone can be-
lieve that this is the path toward a less
dangerous world.

‘A direct and safe road is there for all
to see — equitable and verifiable deep -
cuts in strategic offensive forces and
immediate negotiations to ban all space
weapons.

“If we are to take this road, we
must abandon the misconception that
nuclear explosives are military weapons,
and the illusion that ever more sophis-
ticated technology can, by itself, remove
the perils that science and technology
have created.

‘“‘We must, instead, recognize the
overriding reality of the nuclear age —
that we cannot regain safety by cleverly
sawing off the thin, dry branch on which
the Soviets are perched, for we cling to
the same branch.”’

A Rheinsberg
rses on past

No matter where you go in East Germany you are

Tf.’

aware of history. Each town, village and hamlet has
made a unique contribution to the past, for good or for
evil. When one goes north from Berlin, into the land of
the former semi-feudal aristocarcy, the Junkers, one can
almost smell history.

About 50 kilometres from Berlin lies the town of
Rheinsberg. It was founded 650 years ago as a trading
centre and place of craftsmen’s shops. Eventually, pot-
tery, drugs and timber industries were established there,
before the turn of the century.

I spoke to the mayor of Rheinsberg, Dr. Peter Ort-
mann. A quiet, unassuming, middle-aged man; he is a
graduate economist who can rattle off the facts and
figures about his ancient town. I learned that despite
being a centre for the reactionary countryside, it had
strong working class traditions. The pottery industry
union had been led by militant workers for about a hun-
dred years.

In 1920, the workers of Rheinsberg organized a militia
battalion to oppose a fascist putsch. At that time, a
conference of agricultural workers in the district was
organized there by the Communist Party of Germany. In
1923, during the inflation crisis, many clashes occurred
with the police. The town became known as “‘Red
Rheinsberg.”’

Since 1945, Rheinsberg began a transformation, as did
the surrounding countryside. Today, the town has a
population of 5,300 inhabitants, of whom 3,000 are em-

 ployees in various industries, the chief of which are for
the manufacture of micro-electronic components and
pharmaceuticals, and a nuclear-power research and
training centre: The latter would be similar.to our Chalk
River nuclear establishment, with a small generator that
has functioned without serious defect for the past 17
years.

The countryside farming output mainly goes to feed
Berlin. Besides grain, vegetable and animal production,

the co-operative farmers also boast six large green-

ao — :

GDR leader Erich Honecker (right) views unveiling of Ernst T!

houses that specialize in tomatoes and cucumbers for the
big city market. The 100-metre long, glass buildings are
working to full capacity to meet the demand. Berlin is
also a steady market for meat and milk from the co-op
farms.

Rheinsberg is not only an industrial’ and farming
centre, it is also ideally located for a tourist industry. The
lush countryside contains many lakes and tourist homes.
Last year some 15,000 holidaymakers spent their vaca-
tions in this district.

Beside a lake, closé to Rheinsberg, a new 1,100-bed
holiday home was completed last year. Built by the
FDGB (Confederation of Free German Trade Unions) it
was primarily designed to accommodate large families.
Named after famed communist leader Ernst Thaelmann,
it boasts a huge kitchen, restaurant, dining hall and

halmann plaque at opening of holiday resort in Rhensberg.

lounge, with bar. There is a club-room on each of the
eight fioors and numerous outdoor recreation facilities in
season. In the basement, bowling alleys and table tennis
facilities are used the year around.

The normal cost for holidaymakers here in 190 marks
(about $95) for 13 days; 30 marks for children up to 16
years. A most unusual feature of this FDGB tourist -
resort is that in the off-season nine months of the year, it
has been a treatment centre for the victims of fascism,
mostly elderly workers and farmers. Three doctors and
nine nurses supervise their three-week stay and ac-
tivities, which mainly consist of walking in the nearby
forests, sauna and therapeutic pools. It costs the seniors
nothing. The FDGB sends quotas to district committees
of the union, who in co-operation with the Department of
Health, make reservations from among the elderly appli-
cants.

So Rheinsberg, which is near the site of the notorious _
Sachsenhausen concentration camp, is not only con-
scious of the inhumanity and brutality of the past, but is
making amends in a very positive way. Tens of thou-
sands of anti-fascist Germans were the first victims of the
Nazi sadists. They were murdered, or literally starved
and worked to death, at Sachsenhausen. It is in their
memory the Ernst Thaelmann holiday home was dedi-
cated. A fitting symbol for the future.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 9, 1984 e 7